Anglophone Crisis: CPDM Facts Finding Missions to NW, SW Disagree over Attempts to Harmonize Reports

A proposal to harmonise the fact-finding reports of the CPDM elite of the North West and South West Regions, who were sent back to their respective regions on the instruction of their National Chairman, Paul Biya, to assuage their striking populations, has plunged the party’s bigwigs in disarray.

The Yaounde based CPDM barons of Anglophone extraction were dispatched to the North West and South West Regions as peace emissaries after the September 22 and October 1, 2017, peaceful demonstrations that left many people dead in the two English-speaking Regions of the country. The fact-finding mission to the North West Region was led by Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, while that of the South West Region was led by erstwhile Prime Minister and current President of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, Peter Mafany Musonge.

After a week in the two Anglophone Regions, the PM, during an evaluation meeting in Bamenda on October 22, suggested that the North West delegation should meet with that of the South West Region in Yaounde to harmonise the reports of their findings and come out with a single coherent report.

To him, after harmonisation, a final report on their mission in the two Anglophone Regions as prescribed by Government will then be forwarded to the CPDM National President, Paul Biya. However, when the two delegations met on Tuesday, October 31 to harmonise the reports, the harmonisation move flopped, as the Southwest delegation, led by Peter Mafany Musonge, vehemently refused to harmonise their report with that of the Northwest Region.

The Southwest delegation insisted that the two reports should be forwarded to hierarchy separately.

According to sources, who attended the meeting and who spoke to Journal du Cameroun on condition of anonymity, the South West CPDM elite were scared to merge their reports with that of the North West elite, which they suspected will contain certain aspects that contradict their Chairman’s vision for Cameroon.

They thus decided to present their findings which they thought was in line with President Biya’s crusade of one, indivisible and bilingual Cameroon.

It would be recalled that after the fact-finding mission to the South West Region, Musonge told the press that a majority of Southwest people want effective decentralisation and not secession or a return to a two-State Federation. A move, which President Biya, approves.

President Biya had in his December 31, 2016, end of year address to the nation said Cameroon’s form of State is non-negotiable.

Meanwhile, the inability of the Anglophone elite to harmonise their findings and come out with single report led to the submission of two different reports at the CPDM Headquarters in Yaounde for onward transmission to their National Chairman.

Many Anglophones are already expressing misgivings that the two reports may contain contradictory findings that may further water down the Anglophone Problem and delay a lasting solution to be sought.

Source: Cameroon Journal

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